Bruce's Night Out
by Loyal Eskamoe
Summary: A different kind of Halloween story.  No seriously.


Bruce lifted himself up from the ground, taking stock of the situation. He was in a suburb, one he didn't recognize, it was night, and there seemed to be a plethora oddly tiny monsters running around terrorizing people. Clearly Bruce Wayne wouldn't be of any use. The billionaire hastily ran towards some cover, eager to change into his alter-ego and do what he could to help.

Once there, Bruce was shocked to discover he had no costume, no utility belt, no back up devices cleverly hidden in his tuxedo! All he had on his person was a pack of gum, a silver pen imprinted with a name that wasn't his, a wallet, belonging to someone else, containing various receipts and little money, and set of keys.

This was bad.

He thought for a moment, trying to understand what was going on. He was at a party of some kind. Of that, he was sure. Why else would he be wearing his tux? But then, what happened to all his equipment? And how did he get here? Did someone kidnap him? If so, they must know he's Batman because they took all of his things, leaving him with someone else's belongings? This didn't make any kind of sense.

Whoever took him, seemed to have left him out in the open amongst this chaos. He didn't have any of his communication gear, or money, or credit cards for that matter, so he'd just have to call Alfred collect.

Bruce went out in search of a pay phone. Hopefully this wasn't all an elaborate trap. He stopped. Of course it's all some kind of elaborate trap! He's been kidnapped and dumped in the middle of a riot! The phones probably don't even work!

He cursed silently before calming himself. It wouldn't do to get angry. That only leads to carelessness. He sighed. Who would go through such lengths to leave him without his things, he wondered, going through the list.

Who knew his secret identity?

Ra's Al Ghul, of course, immediately came to mind. As leader of The Demon organization, he is more than capable, financially at least, of pulling such an elaborate scheme. But why? There isn't any kind of environmental aspect to all this, not that he could see anyway, and where did he get all these creatures? But this didn't _feel_ like a Ra's Al Ghul plan.

Bruce considered the next likely suspect.

Bane. He too knew Bruce's secret. But no. If Bane wanted him, he'd just come after him. He wouldn't bother with any of this. And besides, he would've made his presence known by now.

Hugo Strange is long dead.

Who else?

It wasn't the Joker, that's for sure. If the Joker was aware of his secret identity, then his entire family would be dead and smiling.

There aren't any ridiculous riddles anywhere, so it's not Riddler.

Selena wouldn't do something like this. Croc's too dumb. Ivy's in Arkham. Quinn doesn't work without the Joker. If this were the Hatter, Bruce would be wearing some kind of hat. The idea of the Penguin being behind this is laughable.

Harvey maybe? Some kind of duality thing? The splitting of one personality from another? Could be, but last time he checked, Two-Face was in Arkham as well.

A scream shook Bruce from his thoughts. A teenaged girl in a lurid costume was being attacked by some sort of dog creature. If he didn't know better, he would say it was a werewolf.

He sprang into action. Bruce jangled the keys while shouting at the animal. Unfortunately, the thing seemed to prefer the ladies, because it completely ignored him and continued chasing the girl.

That wouldn't do.

Bruce ran to the beast and tackled it while yelling for the girl in the costume to run. This thing was strong! Real strong! He quickly realized when it ignored his weight and continued chasing the girl, that he wouldn't be able to wrestle the creature into submission. Hell, he'd be lucky to wrestle this thing's attention away from it's fleeing would be dinner! Bruce felt around his pockets for anything that could be used as a weapon.

He pulled out the pen. Deciding that would do, Bruce jammed it into the animal's human like shoulder. To his surprise, it promptly collapsed.

The thing was moaning piteously, and Bruce was unnerved by it's eerily human eyes. He turned his attentions to the distraught girl the beast was chasing, inquiring after her health.

It took a while, the girl was traumatized after all, but after he was confident she wasn't injured, Bruce was able to get the story of what happened out of her.

Apparently, she and her boyfriend were taking her little brother Trick-or-Treating. That would explain the costume. Things were going well until her boyfriend turned into a werewolf. Now, during his examination of her health, Bruce didn't see any obvious signs of narcotics. Her pupils were not dilated, her eyes weren't red, and she didn't slur her speech, but once she let loose that little bit of information, he had to ask her flat out if she was on some kind of drug. She said she wasn't, and he believed her. Which means that her boyfriend did in fact turn into a werewolf. That _would_ explain why the creature had such an adverse reaction to the pen, he realized.

Bruce asked what happened to her brother. Did her boyfriend attack him as well? As it turns out, her brother turned into an alien and hovered away.

Two separate cases of individuals turning into their costumes? Interesting. He then asked why she hadn't turned into a nurse, as she was dressed like one.

The girl shrugged helplessly, staring despondently at the whining and crying form of her lupine boyfriend.

Bruce placed a gentile hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, and he gave her his most comforting smile. Without the mask, he was capable of such things. He asked the girl a few more questions, trying to figure out the difference between her and her boyfriend and brother.

As far as he could tell, there was only one. The girl bought her costume at a place called Party Town, and the boyfriend and brother bought theirs at a place called Ethan's.

Bruce narrowed his eyes, remembering something. He pulled out the wallet that wasn't his and removed one of the receipts. A costume rental from Ethan's. A tuxedo to be exact.

The girl saw the color drain from his face and asked what was wrong. Bruce had no answer for her. He gave her another smile, this one forced, and saw her to safety.

If there were answers to be found, then they would be found at Ethan's.

Of course, the first thing he had to find, was where the place was! And as most of the populace were either chasing, or the people being chased, he wasn't likely to get answers from any of them.

Bruce found a pay phone and, after calling his home number and receiving an automated message stating that number didn't exist, he checked the phone book for the store's address. It wasn't in there.

He slammed the phone down in frustration.

After thinking for a few minutes, Bruce again pulled the receipt the wallet. He smiled grimly. There was an address listed along the top. Using the map in the phone book, Bruce was able to figure out the location of Ethan's. He studied the map, memorizing it.

He saw which street he was currently located, and from there, he knew where Ethan's was.

Along the way, he stopped a pirate from attacking a helpless woman, he fended off what appeared to be a vampire, and assisted Chewbacca in rescuing a child from a tiny demon with big ears. Chewbacca bonked it on the head with his enormous fist, while Bruce distracted it using the shiny, shiny, keys.

The wookie went off in search of... something or other. Bruce was having difficulty understanding the growls and roars, as there were no subtitles to helpfully translate. Chewbacca picked the child up onto his shoulders, and went.

Overhead, a body flew under it's own power, and for a moment, Bruce thought it might've been Clark. But the figure was gone before he could tell.

In the distance, sirens could be heard. Along with screams and shouts and gunfire.

Bruce was torn. He wanted to follow the sounds of violence, do what he could to stop them. But that would be attacking the symptoms, not the disease. The fastest way to end this was at Ethan's. Bruce was sure of it.

He continued on his way, stopping to help whenever he was needed.

At last, he arrived at the deceptively innocuous looking shop. Inside Bruce could see a dim light. He used a paperclip and a hair pin that he acquired somewhere to unlock the door.

Bruce heard the sounds of a man being beaten. He clenched his fists and ran towards the back room where the assault was taking place. He arrived just in time to see a sweaty older man lift up a bust of some kind, and smash it into the ground.

Bruce's world went dark.

-

He realized later, after running and hiding before the school's librarian could see him, that he remembered everything about being Bruce Wayne. It was absolutely the coolest thing to have EVER happened to him! He could tell you the password to the Batcave, the code needed to start the Batmobile, he even knew all the tai-chi and martial arts stuff that Batman knew! Of course, his body didn't have any idea how to do any of it, but still!

He resolved to practice the tai-chi. It sucked getting picked on all the time, and now he could, eventually, do something about it. Plus tai-chi was the martial art that was the least likely to cause him to hurt himself. It was so slow. Also, badasses do tai-chi. Oh yes, they do.

The thing that changed for him the most though, was the revelation that the supernatural existed. He used Bruce's detective skills (How awesome is that!) to investigate the events of Halloween. He was eventually able to deduce it was caused by a spell. An invocation really, to the god Janus.

So. Cool.

If a person knew magic, they could alter the very fabric of reality!

Of course, it wasn't all neat spells and nifty magic. There was a darker side to this revelation. Vampires, demons, monsters. They were all of them, real. It was scary enough to cause the young lad with the false memories to (almost) wish Halloween never happened.

He also deduced the fact that, not only did Mr. Giles and Buffy, and Willow, and Xander, and even Cordelia know about demons, they fought them! He never approached them about it, though he wanted to. He wanted to be a hero and battle the demons, but he wasn't wise (and kinda scary) like Mr. Giles, or tenacious like Cordelia, or brave like Xander, or smart like Willow, or strong like Buffy.

And so, Jonathan Levinson resolved to know all he could about the supernatural and magic in particular. After all, knowing is half the battle.

-

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created and is owned by Joss Whedon. Batman was created by Bob Kane and is owned by DC comics. Chewbacca was created and is owned by George Lucas.


End file.
